If you are depressed by the January cold, the sleet sky, the post-holiday emptiness – come with us. At this time in Mallorca the sky is serene and the air is warm, the orange trees bear abundant fruit and the almonds are in blossom. And at this time they celebrate some of the greatest traditional feasts of the year: the temptation of St. Anthony combined with night piglet roasting, and the masquerade and fireworks of St. Sebastian in the old town of Palma.

To Mallorca, one of the most beautiful parts of Europe it is worth going in any month of the year. But it is especially worthwhile to go there in January. Not only because you can avoid for a while the biting Central European winter, and have an encouraging preview of the summer. But also because this island, which is also one of the most archaic regions of Europe, at this time shows its true face, when there are virtually no tourists, and for one month the mountain villages and coastal towns live their own lives.

Between 14 and 21 January we would like to show this face of Mallorca, our second home, on the basis of our many years of experience and with the help of our Mallorcan friends. We will walk all over the old town of Palma, where our experts will guide us in the Jewish neighborhood, in the parts of the majestic medieval cathedral closed to tourists, and in the maze of Renaissance courtyards. We will make trips to the stunning Western Mountains, visit the abbey of Valldemossa, where Chopin spent a winter, and the adjacent Trinity hermitage, the Granja, which was converted from a suburban Arab villa into a Renaissance grange, the medieval mountain towns of Deià and Banyalbufar, the hermit cell of Ramon Llull and the seaside mansion of Archduke Louis Salvator of Habsburg – the model of Verne’s Matthias Sandorf –, the mountain chapel of Sant Llorenç, the Formentor lighthouse, and the medieval abbey of Lluc. We will track along the magnificent beach of Port d’es Canonge and the valley of the torrent of Pareis. We will visit the amphiteater of the Roman Pollentia and the medieval city of Pollença built upon it, the prehistoric necropolis at the seashore of Son Real, and the national park of Albufera. We will participate in the night of St. Anthony in Sa Pobla and the feast of St. Sebastian in Palma. And we will try out the traditional and new-fashioned trattorias, with which Mallorca is abundantly equipped. On all this and much more you are invited to have a look at the almost hundred entries which we have written about the island in recent years.

Our accommodation will be in a four-star hotel within walking distance of Palma’s old town, overlooking the beach. On the island we will go around with a leased bus. The participation fee is 500 euros, which includes the hotel+breakfast (in two-bed rooms), the bus and the guided tour, but does not include the flight ticket, which can be between 150 and 250 euros, depending on the particular flight. We will send detailed program and propose flights as well. Application deadline: Monday, December 16.

A question to the passengers: Now, back from our fantastic journey, do you recognize the places represented in the above pictures? We have been in all of them: I have chosen from my photos taken in the previous years precisely those where we would be going to go to, and all taken in various Januaries. The correct solutions will be gradually included in the captions.